Build Wealth, Health, and Amazing Happiness with Clark Lunt

[0:00] Welcome back to the REI agent. I’m here with Clark Lunt. Clark, thanks so much for joining us. Matthias, man. Thank you for having me on. I love what you’re doing with the show. I love the niche that you’re kind of focused on. So I’m excited to talk about some slightly different things that are kind of related to investing and getting people out to get out there and start getting after the good fight. I love it. Clark, give us like a bird’s eye view. Give us an overview of your world and what you do. Yeah. So I’ve been investing in real estate. So I’m for probably, God, I’m 42 years old, bought my first house when I got out of college. So for the first eight or nine years, I was in a W-2 sales job. I love sales, man. My goal is always to sell the ice to the Eskimo. Thank you. And so I love sales. It’s my passion. But I noticed along the way in my W-2 job for my first eight or nine years that I was buying just rental properties, just vanilla ice cream, 20% down, conventional financing, no hard money, no creative anything.

[1:08] And I noticed that it wasn’t that difficult. I was buying fairly decent assets and I was able to get a property manager and I was able to do my job. And they fixed the faucet when it broke and they sent me a check at the end of the month. And then I kind of got into full-time real estate investing in 2015. And I’ve pretty much been in different kind of niches within real estate investing for the last 10 years. Obviously, as COVID hit, things changed. And then the interest rates spiked and that changed again. So I’ve been caught in a few pivots along the way. And it’s been a hell of a journey, my friend. Wow. Sounds like it. Yeah. What was the tipping point for you to get into investing full-time? Did you have enough acquired that you felt you could do it or what made you go full-time? Yeah. I hear that question a lot. It’s like, how many doors do I need? How many rental properties? How much cash flow do I need to quit my job? My answer to that question is, I think you’re thinking you’re looking at it from the wrong point of view. And what I mean by that is that if I buy a rental property, even if it’s like an Airbnb or a rent by the room or however you want to get creative

[2:20] with it, it’s still somewhat of a passive income. And you’re kind of passively working on it with your energy. I have yet to see people that have been able to do passive investments and make active income. So if you think that you’re listening to this and you’re in a W-2 or you’re wanting to do something passively and then get an active income that you can live off of and continue to thrive and grow, you’re not doing it with passive real estate, at least from what I’ve seen. So the tipping point for me was that I was buying rental properties and I owned like six or seven, I think. And then I’ve actually tried to hire a salesperson and I was a sales manager and he told me about a real estate franchise and excuse me, a light bulb went off. I was like, I didn’t really have the nuts to go quit my job cold turkey and go do it on my own because I don’t know how to flip houses. I don’t know how to wholesale houses. But then when he talked about, hey, I’m buying this real estate franchise, they give you the cash, they give you the access to the money, they give you mentorship, they give you kind of all the tools in your tool belt to be as successful as possible. You still

[3:32] have to do the work. And once he said that a light bulb went off, I ended up quitting within about six months and bought the franchise. And I did both for a while. So I stayed on my company to make sure that this thing was real and legit. And then after about three or four houses that I flipped, I was like, cool, I like it. I was working weekends, nights, the whole story that you hear with everyone else where they’re grinding, you know, 70 hours a week, you know, that story is a bit of a tired story, but it was true. And then that was I then I felt comfortable enough to quit my job and, you know, sprint with the franchise. Okay, so that’s not a, I’m not super familiar with the franchise model like that. So they were giving you all the tools like they would they would help you with the, you know, like the knowledge of how to do it. You said so was it a hard money kind of situation where they would fund the deals for you as well? Yeah, so it’s, it’s a franchise called Homevestors, We Buy Ugly Houses. So they’re a national franchise. They’ve got a caveman guy, they usually have a lot of billboards and stuff. I haven’t seen it in their billboards in a while. But it just it

[4:37] was a good push in the right direction to be able to you get access to four or five lenders, right? So they’ll get lenders that’ll come in, you get better rates, you get lower down payments, maybe you only have to put down five or 10% instead of 20. They give you a cheat sheet on how to how to renovate a property, they give you a network, they give you a mentorship, it is a good program. And the key thing is that they they do the advertising. So when people you pay money every month, they do advertising for you. And then they actually would, the phone call comes directly to me. Now I’m speaking directly with Miss Jones, that’s been thinking about selling her house for 10 years. And, you know, for whatever reason, she needs to get out of that property, and you’re able to solve their problem.

[5:19] And they’re able to give you their property at a discount. Okay, I got it. I did actually did not realize that was a franchise thing that people bought into. That’s interesting. Yeah, so then so you transitioned, you were doing buy and holds. And then you’re kind of replacing your active income with flip money. Right, correct. So I would imagine that as well, you were still actively pursuing the long term. So so did you do BRRRR methods as well through that process? Yeah, I didn’t know what BRRRR was. I was just buying, you know, I think something that I see a lot is like, you get you’ll see a lot of these investors, especially newer investors where they’re wanting to play chess. And I’m like, hold on, hold on.

[6:00] Before you start buying everything on a sub two, and then you do a lease option wrap, and then you decide that you want to do all this like, crazy stuff and then hybrid, and then I’m gonna, I’m gonna, you’re gonna come in and give me the EMD deposit. And then so I’m gonna raise the down payment to buy this like $200,000 rental property. Before you do all that, there is nothing wrong. I repeat, there’s nothing wrong was freaking saving up 20% and buying a $200,000 house with $40,000 down where you have some equity in it, you haven’t squeezed every amount of, you know, juice out of the lemon to where if the rent goes down, if the tax go up, if the insurance goes up, now you’re bleeding every month. And so I bought my first seven properties, saving money up the slow way. And you know, there’s plenty of people saying, well, I was just jogging, not sprinting, because I wasn’t strategizing, right. But those seven properties enabled me to turn those into like 15 pretty quickly, turn them into 25, right? Because then as I got more experienced, then I’m able to start buying on creatively or using hard money and

[7:01] burying it. So it was definitely a mix. But you know, anyone out there that’s listening, that’s like scared to get started, because they don’t understand burr. And like, what if it doesn’t appraise, you know, what you can do is you can go look at a property on the MLS that’s for sale for 250,000, figure out what it’s going to rent for figure out if you’ve got 20% down, figure out what the payments going to be what the rent is. That’s not it’s very, very simple. So I just want people to not overcomplicate things, especially early on. No, I agree. And I think there are definitely the idea, the concept of sub two, just for an example on this, while we’re on this topic is, is appealing. And I get why people think it might work. But there’s a couple of issues. In my market, we’ve definitely still been appreciating since the interest rates have gone up. And so if you’re getting a property that has a low interest rate, and or you’re looking at a sub two in a property that has a low interest rate, you’re likely have to likely having to bring more than 20% down to make it make sense for the seller to do so to do this. As you know, because their property might be worth

[8:10] 350,000, they only owe 250,000 on it. Sure, that’s low interest rate, but they’re not going to just give it to you for 250,000. So you’re gonna have to probably bring that extra 100,000 to make the deal work. And then is it really worth it at that point? And especially if you’re an agent listening in on this, like, again, like they obviously could put it on the market, they can afford to do so. So in the rare event that they are upside down, and that’s usually where it makes sense to do a subject to for the seller. If they’re if they’re upside down, that means you’re overpaying for the property, right? To get this low interest rate. And then, you know, often, it is in the opera, the opportunity often lies within buying something that is distressed, and there’s motivation to sell.

[9:00] And it requires work and it requires risk and investment to get it up to par. Or if you’re buying above market value, like it just you’re not really getting that extra meat on the bone you can you can bring if it’s like a distressed property. So like, buying a good deal is going to probably be better long term than buying overpaying for a cheap interest rate is is more or less what I’m trying to say. Yeah, I think that earlier on, like, I did a I remember I did a few sub twos in like 2015, right before pace Morby was, you know, the god of creative financing. And the thing that I remember back then is that if you were going to pay full price for something, you could still make it work. But you had to make cash flow, because you had to be able to ride the wave when the taxes go up, or the roof needs to be replaced, and you have some money. But what I’ve seen over the last few years is that as it’s exploded in popularity, because the interest rates went up. And so now a 5% taken over a 5% sub two is a good deal.

[10:01] But now I’m seeing not only are you paying full price, but then the cat there’s no cash flow. So it’s like, why would anyone do that deal? And the worst thing about all this that no one ever talks about, and this is what really pisses me off, is that when people get into deals like that, where they’re, you know, they’re barely breaking even on cash flow, they do they there’s no equity in the property, is it if they’re walking away from these sellers, these sellers trust the person contracting the deal that they’re going to do right by them, they’re going to make that payment, they’re not going to like stick their head in the sand in the minute that the insurance goes up $2,000 a year, it doesn’t make sense. They’re like, ah, you know, my name’s not on that that mortgage, not my problem. So I’m starting to see a little bit of that. And I don’t want to get on a soapbox on that. But that’s something that there’s too many people that don’t know what they’re doing, trying to play chess, like just go back and start and buy some houses with some money down and learn and see how tenants react and how a property manager and what stuff costs, you can do all that

[10:55] very simply without having to try and play chess. Yeah. And again, not to dwell on it too much, there is a better way to do the subject too. And where it is, I mean, from interviewing attorneys, it’s like you need to put it into a trust that you’re both part of. And then I think also do a wraparound mortgage so that you are liable for it so that the seller is not on the hook like that. And so just clarifying that too, just in case anybody’s listening to this and thinking that’s like a complete scam. It doesn’t have to be a completely lopsided of a deal. But to your point, I think one of the things that I preach a lot and one of the things I think the best action item, especially if you’re younger and flexible, don’t have kids, that kind of stuff is if you don’t have 20% or you don’t want to wait around for 20%, move into the house that you want to turn into a rental.

[11:46] Exactly. Just do a lower down payment, move into it, live in it. If you can house hack, if you can rent, using fancy terms again, but if you can rent out rooms or a basement or something like that to offset the mortgage, that’s amazing. It’s a win-win. And then save up to get the next one and do that as many times as you’re able to. Me with a wife and three kids, that’s not really in my cards. You can’t do it, my man. You’re going to be sleeping on the couch. But that’s one of the best ways to just get started. And especially if you’re a little handy, you could probably do some things around the house, improve the value while you’re living in it. But no, I agree with you completely. There isn’t anything wrong with doing a 20% down deal.

[12:31] And yeah, the analysis paralysis of trying to figure out the ultimate strategy is probably just going to lead you to not do anything for a long time. I love that you said that about, because that’s my number one thing. And it comes down to one thing that you have to get past is, especially if you’re like in your 20s, because I did it. I bought my first four houses and I lived in it. I rented rooms out and then I bought another one. Roommates lived in it, rinse and repeat. I did that four times. Were these houses that I lived in the coolest A-class near the beach, da-da-da-da houses? Of course not, right? And people say, well, I don’t want to live with roommates. Oh, I don’t want to live in that type of neighborhood.

[13:10] Guys, it’s like a one or two year thing, right? You date the house for a year or two. So what? Paint the fence, make it a little bit nicer, get some roommates in there. If you’re 24 years old, no one cares what type of car you drive when you’re 24. No one cares what type of house you live in. The fact that you own a house, you’re ahead of everyone else that’s renting, right? So if you’re able to buy a house, buy a three bedroom is what I kind of recommend. So you get two roommates, your mortgage payment is, you know, two grand, 2,500 charging 800 bucks. You’re basically splitting everything into thirds. You’re splitting the bills into a third. You do that. Like it’s funny how everyone wants to go out and make more money, but what if you reduce your expenses? What if you take that $2,000 rent payment and now it’s 800 bucks a month? How would that help you to get ahead? How would you be able to save up more money more quickly? How would you be able to put in that new kitchen quicker? Because you actually, your roommates are basically buying you a new kitchen, but it’s not free. You have to, you’re going to live in a B minus neighborhood and like,

[14:07] you’re going to have to deal with that for a year or two. And if you’re not willing to do that, so be it. That’s okay. Just know that the guy or the girl that’s living in the B minus neighborhood that now has four houses by the time they’re 28 and you’re still, you know, moving into the, the, the one that you’ve been waiting for, waiting for the market to do something. Um, you know, it’s not, it’s not pure luck. Let’s put it that way. Yeah. And I think another great move there, um, while you’re doing that method is if you do experience appreciation while you’re living in the house, getting a HELOC on that property, uh, before you move out, uh, you get better terms. If it’s a HELOC instead of a relock and you have to live in the property to get the HELOC. So before you’re applying for a mortgage for the next one, set that in place. Um, and then you have access to capital.

[14:53] You don’t have to use it. It’s going to cost you, you know, maybe a thousand bucks to set up. Um, and, and then you have access to whatever that equity you’re able to tap into move on to the next one. If you do that four times, you suddenly have some money to play with and you suddenly can do things like flips. Um, and so you’re not necessarily having to save up $200,000 of cash, uh, to do a flip without a hard money lender and all that stuff. You’re able to tap into your, uh, you know, your previous equities of these other properties. And that’s when things start to snowball and that’s when you can start getting a little bit more complicated, uh, with your, with your approaches, but to start, yeah. I mean, just having property over time as you know, if you’re a real estate agent, or if you just know about real estate in general, like that’s the key is like just owning assets over time that you’re going to have more and more equity. And with that, you can do more and more things. Yeah. The, the, it’s, it’s something that it’s taken me a long time to learn is that again, the approach of like, Hey, I’m going to buy assets and it’s going to eventually kick off

[15:55] enough income for me to go sit on the beach, um, or quit my active job, right. Where I work my, it doesn’t matter. Like if you’re a real estate agent, same thing, right? Like I work hard, stressful. I’ve got clients that are needy and they’re wanting this. And you know, I’m, I’m working on weekends, right? Being able to just say, well, I’m going to go buy 10 or 15 properties and just think that like now it’s just like a little passive job where maybe you take on one or two clients and that’s it. Like the thing is that let’s say you get to 15 houses, right? It takes like delaying gratification. It takes, um, it takes someone to get out of bed and want to get up and, you know, bust through the door every single day. So if you have that mentality to go out and buy a 15 unit or buy 20 houses or whatever, well, you’re, you’re, you can, you don’t just turn that off.

[16:39] Like you don’t just like hit 15 houses and you’re like, Oh, pina coladas at 8am every day for me on the beach. Like no, I’m not going to be ambitious anymore. I’m not going to be motivated. I’m not, I’m going to turn into a big, you know, fat. So that just eats cheeseburgers and drinks pina coladas all day. Like that’s, that doesn’t exist. Right. So if you have the ambition to get to that point, you’re going to probably want to keep going and saying, God, I now have more experience. I now know that I love rent by the room or I want to go buy multifamily or self storage or whatever it is. You kind of graduate into the next thing. And as someone, you know, I grew up playing sports, right? So I’m competitive. So I’m like, I want to win the game. Right. So it’s like, I want to learn and use my skillsets to advance my career and mature into different asset classes.

[17:20] So the kind of the theory that you’re just going to buy some assets and be able to just like turn off life and it just becomes easy. That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s fugazi. Yeah, no, I think, um, actually was, uh, touring some properties. I was showing some properties to a couple that had, um, they were, you know, my age or younger. And at the time I was probably like 32 or I don’t know. Um, but they were, they were, you know, low thirties and they had sold their, they had like a hospitality business and some commercial property in California and like wine country. Um, I think they maybe had a vineyard. It was like, they did some big moves. They sold pretty valuable, pretty valuable stuff right there. Didn’t have to work a day of life anymore.

[18:06] And, um, uh, you know, in the, in the process they were looking at to buy something small and that they could just kind of like, you know, comfortably live in and not have expenses over their head and that kind of stuff. And I, you know, at the, when I was going through it, I was just thinking like in my shoes, like I, I just couldn’t imagine just retiring, like just not doing anything. And I asked him, I asked the guy, I was like, so what’s your plan? Like, are you planning on just not doing anything now? Like, what are you going to do? Like, what, what are you? And he’s like, you know, my wife, she’d be happy to garden. She’d be happy to do her art projects and just do that the rest of her life for me. Like I always had to have a mountain to climb and I’m going to have to, you know, turn my sights onto something else. And that really resonated with me. And I agree with you completely. Like, I think it’s, um, you know, doing all this stuff will afford you some other opportunities and you can get more complex if you want to. Um, but even just, yeah, just even just, let’s say you’re, you love being an agent, you love selling and you’re just collecting, uh, rental

[19:05] properties as you go. Um, that gives you yes, some extra income. And I think it’s amazing if you can have a goal, which is very hard to kind of match your lifestyle to, um, you know, your passive income so that you’re never like experiencing the lows, right? If you can build up $5,000 a month in, in passive income, you’re still selling, but you’re not worried about like, you know, if it’s a slow season or whatever you can keep going. Um, but, but you know, you can, there’s just a lot more options at that point. And I think if also when you talked about reducing expenses, like your living expenses, um, you can also then look at your sales. Like, okay, this year is a big sales year. I’m, I’m making hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m going to have a huge tax burden and I have a good cushion now. So at that time, if you’re playing chess and trying to find the most magical creative deal, you’re probably going to leave a lot of money taxes wise on the table instead of just going ahead and buying a property and then doing accelerated depreciation and reducing your taxable income. Um, at, and that’s one of the biggest

[20:07] advantages for real estate agents, um, to also invest. And that can be buying your own property. That can also be investing in a syndication. Um, but all that to say, like getting started and like starting off and, and doing the, you know, the easiest, it doesn’t have to be over complicated. Just, yeah. Getting started and moving on something is key. Yeah. My, my favorite, my favorite slogan is, is you can’t hit a home run from the dugout. And it’s so true. It’s like getting from first base to second base is a little bit less is, is just easier getting from second to third, a little bit easier. Right. But if you’re not on the field, you know, like the man in the arena, right. If you’re not in the field to begin with, and you’re just telling your, you’re giving yourself every excuse, the market, the interest rates, uh, the news says it’s scary. Uh, Oh, this isn’t the right market in terms of like geography. Um, and you know, the thing that I’ve learned over the years and I’ve learned in the last couple of years is, you know, wealth loves time, right? Like wealth just loves time in the market. Um, and you know, making money, it loves speed,

[21:10] right? So it’s like speed to lead, right? You’re trying to close a client or whatever, or whatever it may be. Like you need to be on that like quickly. Right. Um, wealth is like a big cruise ship, right? It takes time for it to, to turn and move and it, and it takes a long time for it to get going. But once it gets going, guess what happens? That cruise ship is now going and it’s, it’s going well. Yeah. It’s, and it’s hard to stop. Right. So the things that I’ve, I’ve kind of noticed is that like, if you’re just getting started, it’s hard to picture this, but it, in the beginning, if you can just get started and buy like that first one and get punched in the mouth, right? Like, and, and learn and make mistakes, like the mistakes, the journey that we’re on is, is the fun part. And like when, and you’re, you’re not even going to, until you start making mistakes and buy the wrong property or whatever it may be, you learn from it. And that is such a great thing. And every successful entrepreneur, can tell you all the mistakes they made, but that’s what fueled them to be like, I’m not making that mistake again. Right. You can’t learn that mistake from YouTube. I don’t

[22:12] care how many YouTube videos, how many podcasts you listen to and listen to someone else’s mistake until you get up to the plate and start swinging the bat. You truly don’t know how it feels because you’re not playing with your own money. Right. And so I tell a lot of people that, but what I’ve noticed, Matias, over the last couple of years is with my rental portfolio, the thing that it’s enabled me to do that I never would have understood until I started to see it is I’ve been able to take my property. I’ve been paying the mortgages down, right? The values have gone up over 10, 15 years and that has equity, right? So there’s the equity built into it, which is a combination of principal pay down and just the market, you know, just inflation doing its thing. But what I’ve been able to do is, is go back to that portfolio, take out an equity line against the portfolio and do other stuff with it. Right. So like I’ve built a couple, I’ve, I’m building my second house on a development project. I just put in some money on a entitlement project on a 400 acre project. And it enables me to have cash to be able to do things that I wouldn’t

[23:16] be able to do. And I’ve had to sell zero rental properties to get access to that cash, but it takes time, right? If you buy a property, that’s a quality asset, you’re probably going to pay pretty close to what it’s worth. It’s going to take five, 10, 15 years before you start to really see it. But guess what happens is that if you delay your gratification long enough, now I get to try things. I get to try development. I get to try buying multifamily or whatever it may be, or participate with other people in syndications, but it takes time guys. Like this is, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. A hundred percent. And yeah, just so many options. I mean, so you, you borrowed against the equity. Um, if you, if you refinance, um, you know, you can get that money out tax-free. Um, obviously that changes your payment and changes your cashflow, but depending on your circumstances, I mean, if you’re, let’s say you, you, you get that first house that you live in with a low down payment, and then, you know, you move on and you keep that property and you have it, and then you have a kid and then, you know, fast forward 18 years, they’re wanting to go to college. Um, you could refinance

[24:18] the house and get, and pay for the college and paying for it. Like, so like, it’s just like, if you don’t do anything, you don’t have these options and it’s, yeah. So like, it’s, it’s so true. And, and, you know, I think people are often afraid that it’s a zero sum game. Like, you know, Hey, I’m investing, you know, I’m buying a $250,000 house. Like I could lose $250,000. And I mean, that’s just so rare that I know that there are nightmare stories of people losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, but like typically, especially if you’re buying just a normal rental down, it’s like, there’s just, it’s not likely going to happen like that. Well, I bought like, I’m glad you brought that up. I bought my first house in 2006 at like the height. Right. And of the, of like 06, 07, and then it crashed. But guess what happened? I owned it. I had roommates in it. My mortgage payment was on a 30 year fixed. It stayed the same. Okay. My, it, it, it didn’t look good on paper as it lost value, but then I still own it today. I own the first house I bought in 2006 and guess what? I just renovated the kitchen and I rented it back out and it cash flows six or 700 bucks a month. It was a

[25:25] crappy house when I bought it. It is still a crappy neighborhood. Um, but it’s, it got me to the second house and buying the second house was easier than buying the first one. And then buying the third by like the fourth or fifth house, I was like numb to it. I remember calling my dad. I’m like, dad, come look at the inspection. I don’t know what any of this means. My dad’s really handy. And I remember I was like, what do you think? And we went to the first one and he was there and reading all the documents and stuff. And then I remember we, I brought him to the second one and he didn’t look at it quite as closely. And by the third one, I just said, Hey, I’m, I’m buying a house. I’m moving here. I’m, I’m, and I moved into it and he didn’t come to it. Why? Because it’s easier because I took the action and yeah, I made mistakes and probably didn’t buy in the right neighborhood, but so what? It just, you just learn from it and evolve. But if you keep telling yourself the same story about, Oh, the market’s this, is that like this right now, in my opinion, especially if you’re getting started is like the perfect time to go out, identify properties,

[26:19] being able to find things that, you know, people want rental properties. The first rental property is the minute you buy your own house and move into it. Voila, you have your first investment property, live in it for a year or two, paint the fence, you know, put in a new front door, put some new, you know, reface the cabinets, get some roommates in there and then go out. And if you buy it on an FHA loan, uh, where you’re doing three and a half percent down, then if you can force the value up enough, then you can refinance if the rates are coming down and it makes sense refinance out of that FHA loan. Cause you only get one, right? Then you have a conventional loan. Now go buy the next house, move into a little bit nicer neighborhood, use your FHA again and do that again. I did that three or four times.

[27:00] Yeah. A hundred percent. Um, it’s so true that getting, getting started is huge. And I think one thing that we were talking about too, before, uh, we, we got on the air here was, uh, just kind of focusing on quality of life too. Um, I mean, there’s definitely a grind phase. I think, I think most people that are in the space, uh, or, are driven and whatever they’re going to have to, you know, go through a phase where they’re working a little bit harder, uh, working a little bit longer and to, to try to get the ball rolling. But you know, at a certain time, I mean, I think throughout it, you shouldn’t lose focus on what’s important. Um, but there is a lot more to life than just, you know, yeah, your, your number of doors or your net worth. Um, and, and so like, you know, look at these things as an ability to enhance your life, um, as you go. And if you’re delaying things like, you know, material objects or eating out every day or whatever, that’s one thing, but you know, maintaining your, your physical health, maintaining your relationships, um, all that is, is, you know, don’t lose sight of that and, and use these, this vehicle as a way to get to a dream

[28:11] life, which includes a lot more than just the money in the bank. Amen. I, I love that. And as I get older, I said, I was earlier, I’m 42 is like health is to me, like I look at some of these entrepreneurs and there’s, they’re, you know, they’re older, they’re so stressed out. They’re, they’re overweight. They’re on their third marriage. I’m like, you can keep your $50 million. Like I would not trade for you and, you know, put trade spaces with you. I just, I wouldn’t do it because to me, it’s like, I want to be able to get up. I want to be mobile. I want to be healthy. I want to try and eat healthy. I want to have healthy relationships with my significant other, my network, my friends, my family.

[28:47] And if you don’t have all that stuff and you’re constantly burning bridges because you’re grinding and you’re, you’re doing all that stuff, that’s fine. But like, I want to be healthy and happy at the end of the day. I think it’s what we all aspire to be. And, um, sometimes I think we had caught up in the rat race and you just get focused on like, how can I like post that? I just bought another five unit or that I flipped this many houses or made this much money. Like at the end of the day, if you don’t have anyone to celebrate it with, if you don’t have anyone that wants to be around you, if, if you’re constantly having health issues or things like that, like, why are we even doing all that? My friend, it doesn’t make sense to me.

[29:23] No, a hundred percent. Um, I think, you know, having a healthy realization that we all are going to die and, and it’s not going to be very long until we’re forgotten. Yep. It makes it just highlight the importance of, you know, ensuring that, yeah, you’re living a life that you love and that it’s full. It’s not just one sided of, of, you know, finances. Yeah. Yeah. Amen, man. I think that I’m interested to see like, if, if, if you see, cause I see both sides, like I’ll see entrepreneurs that are, that are healthy and have healthy relationships. But then I also see the other, other side too. And I almost feel bad. I’m like, man, like, it’s great that you have, you know, X, Y, and Z assets or, or houses or money in the bank or whatever. But you know, why is it really that? Is it worth it? Because it’s not worth it to me.

[30:11] And I don’t know if there’s necessarily a wrong answer because everyone is driven differently. Go ask Elon Musk, how he feels about this. He’s going to have a very different answer, right? It’s like, if you’re not sleeping in the office till two 30 in the morning and taking helpers to keep you up and all that stuff, but look where he’s at, right? He’s, he’s, you know, one of the richest guys in the world. So he may to say, well, that you’re just not committed. You’re not this fair enough. That’s all good. You know, teach his own. But, um, I feel like that I’d much rather live a slightly more balanced life. And as we get older, as, as I’m midlife, right now, whatever you want to call it, like I’m starting to watch the shot clock right now.

[30:44] And the shot clock is not at 24 seconds anymore. It’s at like 15 seconds. And I want to squeeze, you know, I want to get as much as I can out of every, every day. And so sometimes you have to like kind of stop, step back and smell the roses. Yeah, absolutely. Um, curious if you have any, uh, golden nuggets you want to share with our listeners. Yeah. I, I, I think that if, especially if there’s a lot of, um, Matias, if there’s a lot of folks that are on the fence, right there in a W two, maybe they’re a real estate agent and they’re kind of scared to make that next step. Um, I, I think that one of the biggest, my motto for 2025 is who, not how, right. Um, meaning like, instead of figuring out how do I buy my first rental? How do I buy my first flip? How do I get out of my W two is to really go look at my circle and figure out who is around me is everyone. I spend time with a W two employee is everyone.

[31:37] I, that I surround myself with, you know, they don’t own investments or real estate. And I really think that being able to change your circle and, and be self-aware of what your circle is. And I think the easiest way, if you find yourself saying, uh, my circle, isn’t really helping bring me up is I hate to say it, but you’ve got to buy your circle, right? You got to buy your way into mentorships or masterminds. You know, I’m a part of two or three different masterminds. And are you buying your friends? You’re damn right. You’re buying your friends, but you know what you are not. It’s not who is in the room that you’re there is you’re paying for who’s not in the room. Who’s not the naysayer. That’s going to say that’s risky. So I would keep that, you know, if you’re listening to this, I would do like a self audit of who you spend your time with and who you’re, you’re taking advice from. Are you taking advice from your aunt Mabel that, that had a bad rental back in 1985? And then it’s like, it’s a horrible idea.

[32:33] You may want to think about that. Um, you know, because without that, it’s really freaking hard to just keep getting up and pound the pavement every day. When you’ve got all these people barking at you saying that’s risky, it’s not a good idea. I would never do that. I, this one bad time I had a bad experience. You’ve got to get rid of all that clutter and focus on it. It’s not easy. Easiest way to do it. In my opinion is to go write a check and invest in yourself. Yeah. Yeah. The people that, yeah, you surround yourself is so huge. Uh, it is, is a huge game changer. Um, being around people that are further ahead than you, um, that of where you want to be. I mean, that just opened so many doors and, and that’s mostly just your, your mindset. You’re here. Yeah. So, and yeah, also having voices that drown out the, uh, the naysayers that haven’t done it and are scared to do anything. So well said, love it. Um, so do you have a favorite book that you think everybody should read a fundamental one, um, or one that you just currently really enjoy?

[33:33] I mean, I’ve got a bunch, we could spend a whole hour on this, but I’ll try and keep it short. I think that I’m going to, I’m going to piggyback off what I just said, who, not how, right? The way for people to, to attracted to you to say like, you know what? I like this guy. This, this guy or this girl is a hustler. I’m going to spend a little, I’m going to spend 45 minutes on a zoom call with them instead of 10, right? Or I’m going to meet them at this event. And I think that the way to be attractive to people is you have to be able to be very curious about their life and how you can help them and how you can serve them. Right? So two, two books that jump into my head are certainly the go giver, um, and, uh, how to win friends and influence people. It’s an old book. It’s got a bunch of old, uh, uh, you know, acronyms and things like that, but how to win friends and influence people helps me to understand like, Matthias, we’re on this show together. Like, what is it that you do? What is it that I can help you with to, to grow whatever you’re trying to do?

[34:27] What is your goal? And instead of being like, Hey man, how do I buy my first rental? How give me, give me free knowledge. You’ve been doing this 15 years. You made all the mistakes. Give me all the cheat codes, right? If you have that mentality, it’s very nearsighted and people aren’t drawn to that. So if you go out and you read how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie, it’s like a classic. It really helps you to be able to walk in the shoes of somebody else and have empathy for their situation to see how you can seek to serve them first. Yeah. That book is, is a classic and a good reason for it. Um, yeah, those are great. Um, and then finally, if, uh, there, anybody wants to follow you, um, you have a podcast where can people find you? Yeah. So I have a podcast. It’s called burn your boats wealth. Um, and so you can reach out to us there. You can, we’re on Spotify, Apple. Um, you can reach out to me on, on, um, uh, Instagram.

[35:19] It’s the letter U serious Clark 23 is my Instagram handle. Um, I haven’t changed it in a long time, but, um, so yeah, if, if, if you have any questions or if I can, if I could help kind of like push you off the ledge a little bit, if you’re like on the fence, I’m more than happy to hop on a 15 minute call and see if there’s any value I can bring to you to see, you know, what it is that you have that mental roadblock that people keep telling you this or that you’re, you’re kind of stuck. Uh, give me, you know, DM me and, and, um, or go check out our podcast. We’ve got, we’ve got a hundred plus episodes though. That’s awesome. Clark. Thank you so much, uh, for being on the show, being, uh, somebody that the people can be inspired by. I think this is a motivating episode. So I really appreciate you being on here. All we can do, man. I really appreciate it. And I love what you’re doing, Matthias and, and this, this niche that you’re in, man. And I look forward to seeing you, you explode this thing. Thanks for listening to the REI agent. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week, visit REI agent.com for more content until next time,

[36:21] keep building the life you want. All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.